Software Engineer, PHP SDK

Overview

This role is ideal for ambitious PHP engineers with entrepreneurial goals. We are looking for a PHP expert to lead the development of Fern’s PHP SDK generator. Your work will directly influence the experience of thousands of developers using SDKs for companies like Square, ElevenLabs, Cohere, Intercom, and more. You'll define what high quality looks like in PHP SDKs and help set the standard for the broader PHP community.

Many of us are former or future founders, and this is an opportunity to scale a company from $1M to $10M ARR while partnering with fast-growing tech companies shaping the future of software. We value in-person collaboration and work out of our office in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Sound like you? Get in touch.

What you'll do

Define PHP best practices. You’ll set the tone for how a modern PHP SDK should feel — readable, idiomatic, and a joy to use. We’re constantly raising the bar to make our SDKs the best in the industry. This is more than code generation; it's about crafting PHP libraries that developers trust and love.

Build out our compiler. You'll own core components of our open source compiler, defining the primitives that power every one of our SDKs. You’ll implement new capabilities like auto-pagination and server-sent events, and push the boundaries of what a generated SDK can offer.

Engage with the PHP community. You’ll stay on top of modern PHP tools and frameworks, incorporate best practices, and work directly with developers through GitHub issues and community forums to evolve the SDK based on real-world needs.

Build our team. You'll work closely with our CEO and CTO to recruit and mentor new engineers as we scale.

What you’ll bring

Deep experience with modern PHP tools, such as Composer, Guzzle, PHPStan, and Rector.

Strong grasp of PHP’s evolving ecosystem — from type checking to emerging standards like Symfony and Laravel.

Enthusiasm for shaping language communities, like Niels, our C# engineer who actively engages with the .NET team.

An eye for crafting a great developer experience.

(Bonus) You've worked in a high-growth SaaS company.

(Bonus) Experience working with OpenAPI, GraphQL, Protocol Buffers, AsyncAPI, or Smithy (AWS).

What we offer

Engineering challenges that will push you to become a better developer.

Kind teammates who work hard.

First-hand experience building an early-stage startup.

A salary of $200,000 to $230,000 and equity.

Living proximity bonus of $18,000 per year if you choose to live near the office.

Meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) at the office.

Health, dental, and vision insurance.

Our tech stack

Microservices: Express (Node.js), FastAPI (Python)

Postgres + Prisma ORM (Database)

Anthropic + Bedrock (LLM)

Fern (API)

AWS (Cloud)

About the interview

Phone Screen with a founder

Technical Interview: Coding

Technical Interview: Decomp (System Design)

Work Trial (in office)

Offer!